One of the bookies hit favourite was Ilias Iliadis (GRE) in the men’s -90kg category. Hardly surprising as he was Olympic Gold medalist in 2004 in the -81kg category.

What a surprise then that Kirill Denisov (RUS) beat him by a Yuko score in his second contest to secure himself a place in the semi-final. He will face Ye-Sui Hwang (KOR) who surprised many of us back stage with the sheer amount of bandaging he applied to both legs; I don’t think I have ever seen someone constantly rolling tape around their legs like that before.

As the women’s repechage contests get underway, it’s hard to pick a clear favourite. However, with two judoka in the semi-finals, Korea’s medal tally will increase quite a bit.
They are, at the time of writing this, in fifth place. If they can get 2 gold medals, they’d leap to 3rd place behind
China and USA.
TeamGB are currently 14th (1 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze)